


Budding

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, F/M, Gen, Propriety, Prostitution, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 06:36:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6743290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What Matron Brannan sees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Budding

“Eh, there, Nurse Baroness! I want a word with you,” called Matron Brannan, across the busy hallway. Mary looked up, startled. She and Matron Brannan had reached an accord of sorts over the past few months but it appeared something had transpired to make Matron return to her previous, more skeptical and mocking address. Mary looked about her and saw nothing in particular out of the ordinary—the wards were full and the hallways crowded but the hospital hummed along, each contributing as they could. Mary had just shooed a trio of prostitutes, gaily clad but with ribbons and feathers drooping from the damp, to the small room she used as a clinic and had asked them to wait. She hardly thought Matron was distressed by them—she had been running the clinic for weeks now and Matron had barely seemed to notice. Mary finished the dressing change on the man before her and went to go find Matron.

“Well, then, Nurse Phinney—you’re finally done with yer harlots?” Matron asked. She had gestured for Mary to join her in a alcove but had not sat down or given any indication that Mary should. Mary took a deep breath and smoothed her hands across her apron.

“The women are waiting for me in my clinic just as they always do on Mondays and Wednesdays. They give no trouble, I think—have there been problems with the men or the orderlies?” Mary replied. Matron had said on more than one occasion that she wouldn’t call the women anything but harlots or whores, so Mary had dispensed with trying to convince her and simply tried to speak of the prostitutes as little as possible, at least with Matron. She and Jed had had some fascinating conversations about how to approach the venereal disease issues, discussing the various advantages of quarantining the sick women or applying any of the standard treatments they had at their disposal. She had found he was refreshingly reasonable about the women and did not see them as the source of all illness, had said, “Well, how can it be? For once, they were all pure, before a man had them, yes? It is not nature’s way-- to pick only one sex to be the repository of a disease, no, it makes little sense, even if we cannot identify the cause—be it miasma or something in the water, like the cholera Snow tracked. There is no disease that attacks only men or only women that I know of, thus we should try to treat them equally for the health of them all. I leave it to the ministers to deal with their immortal souls—I think we have enough work to do with their bodies.” Mary had been invigorated by the content of the conversation and also Jed’s frank and equable approach; in this matter, he did not seem to need to lord his scientific education over her, but shared it willingly and welcomed the insights she brought to him. She realized she had paused too long when she glanced Matron peering at her, a searching look that said she had taken Mary’s measure and somehow found her wanting or at fault.

“No trouble there, I think, and thanks be to God for it. Sure, it does given the nuns a change to their prayers and to watch their Mother Superior when you lead ‘em through the halls, the stink of their perfume in the air, when they are wanting their incense, well, ‘tis a small pleasure. No, that’s not the trouble. You’ve been keeping watch over the little Miss Green, haven’t yeh? I’m thinking not close enough, no, not close enough,” she said with a twist of her lip. 

“What can you mean, Matron Brannan? For I have seen Miss Green tending the Rebel boys most diligently and she helps a little if we ask with the Union soldiers, not with the best grace, I grant you--” Mary was not flustered, not yet, but it was unsettling to think Miss Green might be treated in an unkind or disrespectful fashion, when she sacrificed much to work among her enemy. Mary had grown fond of Emma, whose sweet temper was balanced by a strong will; she admitted Emma may sometimes have been willful, but thought she was more flexible than many others, with less approbation. 

“Have you not eyes to see, my fine Nurse Phinney? Miss Green and the young chaplain, the New Yorker Hopkins, they gaze and they moon. She is all blushes when he walks by, he cannot help but watch for her, always at the ready to fetch and carry, as if he were an orderly or servant, and not a man of God. It’s a romance budding between the two and no mistake, but it best be scuttled and soon, unless you want this hospital considered Alexandria’s finest brothel, harlots on Mondays and Wednesdays and girls of good family ready to be tumbled--”

“Matron! Please! I beg you not to speak that way of Miss Green—or even the other women we treat. I had not, that is, I did not see how they were… towards each other, I will speak with Miss Green and remind her how we must focus all our efforts for the care of the men and not be… distracted, even by any tender feelings that might arise. Chaplain Hopkins is an honorable man, I am sure he would never act improperly, but Miss Green is young and the world is so… confusing. I am sure we may, we may nip whatever there may be in the bud, and all will be as it should be.” Mary finished, moving from shock at Matron’s bold words to a growing realization that she was right, that Emma and Henry Hopkins had begun to act as a courting couple, insofar as they were able in the variable mayhem of Mansion House. She would take Emma aside immediately and advise her, gently, to modify her behavior, to model herself at Mansion House on the nuns, to be above reproach. She tilted her head slightly at Matron as she gathered her skirts in one hand, intent on finding Emma, her ear already listening for the soft Virginia drawl of the younger woman.

“Aye, my Baroness, could it all be as it should, someone would have spoken so to you, and time well past for it, for your own pretty glances and those you receive in return—but it is past time for that to be nipped in the bud, past time,” Matron Brannan muttered to herself, as she walked out from the alcove and saw Mary stopped in the hallway, her face tilted up to Dr. Foster’s, his hand paused in its reach to hers, some little deference to society preventing his full breach of propriety. She had an open face for an old woman to read, did Mary Phinney, and every day it shone brighter for Jed Foster. There was little enough she could say, for didn’t the hospital run better for it, the doctor less surly, the men basking in her bountiful smiles. Bridget Brannan saw the truth of it and the danger too, but the time was long past to stop the blooming of that red, red rose.

**Author's Note:**

> Here is my contribution for the prompt "budding." I hope it has a little something for all Mercy Street shippers.


End file.
